Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 2 (ICONS)

The Field Guide Vol. 2 continues the definitive encyclopedia of superhero archetypes in modern comics.

Written by Jason "Dr. Comics" Tondro, who studied comics for his PhD in Literature, the Field Guide is a gold mine of ideas and inspiration for your next hero. After a discussion of each archetype generally, the Field Guide then gives a fully fleshed out hero, suitable for immediate use as a PC or important NPC in your ICONS campaign.

Rather than break archetypes down by power set, the Field Guide looks at the character's origin and role in the story. This makes the archetypes much more versatile and puts the emphasis on character, rather than power.

Here's a short list of the ten archetypes discussed in this second volume of the Field Guide to Superheroes.

The Descendant: A second generation hero carrying on the legacy of a mentor or relative.

The Divine Hero: An avatar of a living religion such as Christianity or Judaism.

The Embodiment: A living manifestation of an idea or natural force such as speed or justice.

The Ex-Con: A petty criminal turned hero.

Femme Feline: Dangerous, ambiguous and attractive, she represents the most popular variant of the animal hero.

Feral Hero: A Jeckyll and Hyde character, this hero struggles with a dark inner self.

Focused Hero: This hero has only one power which he has mastered completely.

Gadget Guy/Girl: Is a scientist who uses technology to fight crime.

Handicapped Hero: Has a serious disability which doesn't prevent him or her from fighting crime.

I gave a negative review of this series. I have come to regret this choice the more I reviewed this product. I now feel I should update my conclusions and try to be a more informative reviewer for my readers and not vent my financial venom into the RPG [...]

This is a solid effort by Tondro. The example characters are a mixed bag in this book too, but seem to be better than Volume One. The Road Scholar is one of my favorites, and his new power of Super-Vehicle is a great addition to the ICONS system. The [...]

Another great release from a promising product line, Field Guide to Superheroes Volume 2 adds the next 10 heroes of the 40 total. Of note here is the Super Vehicle power. Mr. Kenson chose to leave out vehicle rules from the main icons book even though [...]

These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.

Original electronic format

These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.

File Information

Watermarked PDF

Adobe DRM-protected PDF

These eBooks are protected by Adobe's Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. To use them, you must activate your Adobe Reader software. Click here for more details.

Watermarked PDF

These eBooks are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the document containing your name and the order number of your eBook purchase.

Warning: If any books bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.